


Ice

by sparxwrites



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bathtubs, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel (Supernatural) is Loki, Hurt/Comfort, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, M/M, Odin is a dick, References to Norse Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:36:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Family reunion,” manages Gabriel in answer to Sam’s unspoken question, smiling shakily and pushing out an unconvincing laugh.</i>
</p>
<p>Odin is a dick, Gabriel is hurting, and Sam's not exactly sure how to deal with any of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice

“Family reunion,” manages Gabriel in answer to Sam’s unspoken question, smiling shakily and pushing out an unconvincing laugh. His nose and lips bleached a strange whitish blue, and there are traces of purple under his fingernails. He’s not shivering, not yet, but there’s a tension to his shoulders like he’s reigning in his trembles. “Odin wasn’t so happy to see his wayward son.”

Sam knows better than to ask what happened, to try and touch – Gabriel’s skittish at the best of times, and right now he looks ready to bolt at the wrong word. So, instead of trying to hug or fuss, he says conversationally, “Do you realise your nose is blue?”

Gabriel frowns, raising trembling fingers to his nose and scrabbling at it numbly. “Well, whaddaya know?” he says quietly, even though Sam’s sure his fingers are too numb to feel anything, judging by how stiffly he’s holding them. “Does it look good on me?”

Huffing out a breath, Sam shakes his head – and, unable to help himself, reaches out to catch Gabriel’s fingers. The archangel drags them back almost immediately, a hunted look in his eyes, but there’s skin-to-skin contact for long enough that Sam can feel how unearthly, impossibly cold they are.

“Don’t-” snaps Gabriel, and although he catches himself before he can add _touch me_ , Sam hears it all the same.  
“Okay,” he says quietly, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “okay. But I need you to get into the bathroom.

By now, Gabriel  _is_  shivering, short little convulsions that ripple through his body with every breath. “Why?” he mutters, eyes narrowed and hooded with fear. “What are you going to do to me? What do you want?” For a moment, he’s lost, fragile, and Sam’s not entirely sure he completely knows where he is.

Fighting the urge to wrap arms around Gabriel, Sam sighs. “You’re freezing,” he says quietly. “I thought a bath might warm you up.”  
Gabriel frowns through his shivers. “I’m fine, momma moose. Stop fussing.” The words would be more convincing if they weren’t spoken through chattering teeth.

“Gabriel. Bathroom.  _Now_.”

Wincing – because that’s Sam’s bossy voice and, twitchy as he is right now, he knows it means Sam’s angry – Gabriel nods. “Well, if you wanted to get all kinky about it, you could’ve just  _asked_ ,” he says, but heads towards the bathroom anyway.

He perches on the toilet, watching as Sam sets about running the bath, putting the plug in and checking water temperature, and startles when an armful of towels are thrown at him. “You look like you could do with warming yourself up,” says Sam, low and non-confrontational, and if Gabriel had had more energy he would have argued.

But he doesn’t, though, so he wraps himself in them instead, pressing one numb cheek against the rough motel-grade fabric and rubbing it back and forth gently, trying to get some feeling back into it. If Sam notices, he says nothing.

Soon enough, the bath is half-full, the water lukewarm to Sam’s touch but probably burning to Gabriel’s terrifyingly cold skin. “Bath’s ready,” he says, unnecessarily, stepping back and eyeing the small mound of towels Gabriel has buried himself in; his nose is  _still_  blue-purple. “Are you gonna…”

He’s saved from having to answer when Gabriel extricates himself from the pile of towels, (reluctantly) strips off his jacket and belt and shoes – Sam doesn’t fail to notice the way he clutches them to himself for a second before letting them go, the way he hides the belt under the jacket as if Sam won’t notice it that way – and goes to stand next to the bath, flexing his toes in the pile of the bath mat.

“You sure this is a good idea, kiddo?” he asks, tentatively, looking at the bath like he thinks the water might bite.

“If you’ve got a better way to warm yourself up-”  _especially considering I can’t touch you, so body heat is out_ , “-then I’m open to suggestions,” says Sam, easily, deliberately not saying anything that makes Gabriel feel like he  _has_  to get in, but also not really leaving denial as an option.

Gabriel’s irritable, anxious nose-twitch is answer enough to that question. “Guess not,” he mutters, before tentatively lifting one sock-covered foot and touching it to the surface of the water. For a second, he pauses, eyes narrowing and shoulders bracing for  _something_ despite his shaking, before he sticks the whole foot in.

“Fuck!” The sharpness, the bitten-off quality of the word, has Sam jerking forward to grab him, to try and help, before he remembers he’s not allowed to right now. “Fuck, fuck, oww, that  _hurts_ , fuck-” Gabriel breaks off into some language he’s not familiar with, although from his tone of voice he’s still swearing copiously.

“Too hot?” asks Sam, even though the possibility seems ridiculous – the water was  _cool_  to the touch, lower than body temperature, how could it possibly be too hot?

Hissing in a long, thin stream between his teeth, Gabriel puts his other foot in. His shivers seem to have slowed a little, some colour found its way back into his face, but that might just be Sam’s hopeful imagination. “Odin,” says Gabriel grimly, face lined with stress and pain, “isn’t know for pulling his punches.”

“What happened?” asks Sam, against his better judgement, the tone in Gabriel’s voice overriding his earlier resolution not to ask, not to push.

“There was an argument. I got sent to Jötunheim for a quick holiday,” mutters Gabriel, before sinking down into the lukewarm water. “Wasn’t much of a fucking-” He breaks off again, hissing and cursing and curling over on himself into a ball, fully-clothed and rocking back and forth in pain as the water soaks slowly through the fabric around him.

When Sam next looks at the water, there’s a sheet of ice across its surface.

He doesn’t know  _that_  much about Norse mythology – few Scandinavian nasties have made it across the ocean – but he’s familiar enough with it to recognise the name, to remember it as an icy planet with a less than friendly native species.

The ice bit at least explains why Gabriel’s so cold to the touch – apparently, cold enough to  _freeze the bathwater_ , which is a little scary. “Right,” says Sam, trying not to feel too out of his depth. He stands up from where he’d been sat on the toilet, watching, and approaches the bath slowly. “I’m gonna take the ice out, alright?”

Gabriel’s still hunched over, trembling, and Sam’s unsure if it’s from the cold or from the pain of defrosting. Either way, he doesn’t move when Sam reaches over to turn the taps on to run lukewarm water again, pulls the plug out so the freezing cold water can drain away, and starts picking as many cracked pieces of ice as he can out the bath and putting them in the sink.

He’s just getting the last of it out when Gabriel uncurls, straightens his back a little and sits up. His nose is no longer blue, or even purple, but he’s still a waxy shade of grey-white to his cheeks that isn’t healthy or normal. “Hey,” he says, softly, and his voice shakes a little like his shoulders had until a few minutes ago.

“Hey,” says Sam back, because he’s not sure what to say.

“Sorry for- flinching,” says Gabriel, casting around for another word and fails to find one, because that’s exactly what he had been doing. “When you tried to touch me. You were- hot. Really hot.” There’s a joke to be made there somewhere, Sam knows, along the lines of  _I know I am_ , but he looks at the hollow, twitchy exhaustion on Gabriel’s face and knows it’s not the right time – that their temperature difference wasn’t the only reason Gabriel had recoiled from him.

Gabriel looks at the pile of ice in the sink, at the slight redness of Sam’s hands where they were chilled by its touch, and worries on his lip. “Join me?”

“Sure,” murmurs Sam, quietly, hesitantly reaching to rest a hand on the top of Gabriel’s head. When the archangel doesn’t flinch, he relaxes a little, sheds his belt but keeps the rest of his clothes on as Gabriel had done. “Move up a bit, I’ve got long legs.”

“Moose,” says Gabriel, half-heartedly, but moves anyways, letting Sam settle into the warm-ish water behind him before shuffling backwards so he can curl against Sam’s chest, his still-cold form steadily leaching Sam’s core warmth.

Sam doesn’t mind, though. He sits there, soaked to the skin and slowly getting colder, and wraps around Gabriel’s midriff. Once he’s sure the archangel’s not going to startle at the touch, a hand finds Gabriel’s head again, combing fingers through hair still a little stiff with ice crystals until they’re melted to dampness and Gabriel is breathing slowly, evenly, asleep against the comforting warmth of his body.


End file.
